Abstract: The collection comprises correspondence between Ernst Jaeger and filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, starting in the 1950s to the
1970s as well as screenplays, manuscripts and other correspondence from Ernst Jaeger. Blending audio recordings, photographs
and correspondence, the cinematic memorabilia offers insight into the tumultuous relationship of the one-time colleagues,
revealing how Riefenstahl coped emotionally and financially with her unenvious status as a social pariah following Germany's
World War II defeat. Materials that include letters in her own handwriting are an invaluable source for her perspective on
life after the war, and they shed light on the reputation of her films and their importance as part of fascist propaganda.
Many of the postcards and letters in the collection are in her native German, though many have been translated into English.
This discrete but rich collection not only provides insight into Leni Riefenstahl's personal and financial worries, but also
details her relationship with her former collaborator and mentor, Ernst Jaeger. While the first part of the collection focuses
on the relationship between Riefenstahl and Jaeger, the second part mainly focuses on Jaegers work in the US. Several manuscripts
for screenplays as well as his personal and business correspondence highlight Jaeger's efforts in finding work and recognition
in the film business.

creator:
Jaeger, Ernst, 1869-1944

Scope and Content

Collection comprises correspondence between Ernst Jaeger and Leni Riefenstahl. Some of the letters have been transcribed and
translated into English. The collection also contains several photographs of Riefenstahl.It also contains one letter spoken
onto an audio tape by Riefenstahl. Box 2 mainly houses personal and business correspondence of Ernst Jaeger as well as manuscripts
and screenplays by Jaeger.

Biographical note

The Ernst Jaeger papers include numerous primary source materials on Leni Riefenstahl and on Jaeger, a renowned German journalist.

Born Berta Helene Amalie Riefenstahl in 1902, Leni grew up in Berlin. She studied dance and was soon performing in Munich,
Berlin and Prague until a knee injury ended her stage career but did not stop her from a transition to film. Within months
of viewing Arnold Fanck's "Berg des Schicksals" (Mountain of Destiny) the film she credits with piquing her curiosity in cinema,
Riefenstahl starred in another of Fanck's mountain films, "Der heilige Berg" (The Sacred Mountain,aka Peaks of Destiny), after
a chance meeting with the director. After appearing in several films, Riefenstahl turned to directing, a remarkable feat for
a woman in a field dominated by men.

In the spring of 1932, anti-Nazi journalist Jaeger encouraged Riefenstahl to join him at Berlin's Sportspalast arena to hear
Adolf Hitler rally the audience in his bid to become president. "It seemed as if the earth's surface were spreading out in
front of me, like a hemisphere that suddenly splits apart in the middle, spewing out an enormous jet of water, so powerful
that it touched the sky and shook the earth", she later recalled. "I felt quite paralyzed."

Although Riefenstahl reportedly rebuffed his amorous advances, Hitler soon commissioned Riefenstahl to execute a chilling
work of demagoguery known as Triumph des Willens (The Triumph of the Will), an account of the pomp and pageantry of the Nazi
Party's Sixth Nuremburg Party Congress. The film featured a cast of thousands, including Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Josef Goebbels,
Rudolf Hess, Hermann Goering and other top party officials.

Riefenstahl followed Triumph of the Will with Olympia, an epic two-part documentary about the 1936 Berlin Olympics. While
directing Olympia, Riefenstahl oversaw a crew of 60 cinematographers who shot more than 1.3 million feet (248 miles) of film.
In the process, she invented or enhanced many of the cinematography techniques now taken for granted: slow-motion shots of
athletes, the use of a telephoto lens for close-ups, underwater diving shots, high shots from towers and low shots from pits,
panoramic aerial shots taken from blimps and cameras deployed on rails to capture fast movements. To this day, Olympia is
still considered a cinematic masterpiece.

Riefenstahl hired Jaeger, the former editor-in-chief of a popular German trade journal as her press chief, although doing
so raised the ire of Goebbels, the Nazi minister of propaganda. Jaeger, a Social Democrat, had been expelled from the Reich
Literature Chamber by Goebbels, partly because his wife was Jewish. Jaeger ended up ghostwriting publications on behalf of
Riefenstahl. "I had been able to help him a year earlier when he was in financial straits: My firm commissioned him to write
a brochure on the work involved in Triumph of the Will", she wrote in her memoir. Riefenstahl also requested that Jaeger accompany
her to America to help secure U.S. distribution for Olympia.The trip was not as successful as she had hoped because few executives
welcomed her. Even with near-universal acclaim, the Third Reich-tainted Olympia never found a U.S. distributor, and a dejected
Riefenstahl set sail for Germany.

The ongoing debate continues as to whether Riefenstahl was merely recording events that had been staged by the Nazis (as she
claimed until her death), or whether she alone was responsible for the film's persuasive visual dynamics and production design.

All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Exile Studies Librarian
at ullmann@usc.edu. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items
and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.